DA's case backlog nothing new, former Hardin County officeholders say

Published 12:00 am, Thursday, January 15, 2009

A recently publicized felony case backlog is nothing new for Hardin County, according to former district attorney Henry "Bugs" Coe III.

"The backlog of cases (now) is not much different nor much more than I had," Coe said in a written statement, recalling the time when he took office.

Coe, 45, lost his seat to longtime county attorney David Sheffield, 46, in the March 2008 Democratic primary. A former assistant to then-Hardin County District Attorney Charlie Roach, Coe served one term in office starting in 2004.

Sheffield said 1,131 felony cases were identified as backlogged when he took over Jan. 1. Sheffield said he thinks no more than 200 cases should be awaiting trial at any given time.

who had served as the county attorney since 1993.

Coe acknowledged he made mistakes while in office and said he takes full responsibility for them.

But he said case backlog is a problem that has plagued Hardin County prosecutors for many years.

"The situation (Sheffield) inherited is a paradise compared to the one I walked into," noted Coe, now a Kountze-based private attorney.

"I didn't spend time whining about it," Coe said. "Mr. Roach didn't do it either and I bet Mr. Horka didn't either â?¦ we simply went to work and did the best we could."

Roach, who served from 1996 until 2004 and no longer lives in the area, could not be reached for comment.

R.F. "Bo" Horka said about 2,700 cases were backlogged when voters sent him to the office in 1980.

"Cases had been neglected for about eight years prior to me being district attorney. There were a lot of problems when I took over, but you are going to have that problem every now and then, depending on who your predecessor was and how they ran that office," Horka told The Enterprise Wednesday by phone.

Now a Silsbee-based private practice attorney, Horka held the district attorney's seat until July 1996, according to The Enterprise archives.

"(Sheffield) walked into the same kind of trap I did; lots of backlog and probably half of the cases aren't prosecutable anymore," Horka said.

Sheffield said he now is working to get rid of the case backlog and recently added a second assistant district attorney to his staff to handle the increased caseload. He will have one investigator, the same number as Coe.

"There are quite a few felony cases that have been pending for some time and David has a solid plan in place to bring everything up-to-date," said Hardin County Judge Billy Caraway.

"We hope having a second assistant district attorney will help David in his process."

The district attorney's office employed one assistant prosecutor during Coe's tenure.

"I'm glad (Sheffield) was able to get more help," Coe said.

Sheffield has appointed Pat Hardy and Dallas Barrington to the assistant DA posts.

A former Tyler County district attorney, Hardy also served as assistant district attorney in Jasper County and was involved prosecuting defendants in the dragging death of James Byrd Jr., according to Sheffield.

Barrington served as the Newton County assistant district attorney and was a city of Silsbee municipal judge.

"We are going over every case, every file as a team to see if we can still proceed with the case," Sheffield said.

"We are going to save as many cases as we can. These victims deserve justice and these defendants need to be off the streets," Sheffield said.

Horka said it took 1Â½ years to clear the case backlog when he took office.

"We took the most serious cases - 14 or 15 were murder cases with two of them capital murder cases - and we were lucky enough to not to lose them and to get some good, strong sentences, so people were more apt to plea bargain after that and it really helped move the cases along," Horka said.

"I remember one day, we had 70 defendants that entered pleas, all in one day," Horka said.

"It took a while but we got the backlog cleared out and then we processed on average about 700 to 800 cases each year. That's about what the standard is for prosecution today, too."

Coe said the additional resources should aid Sheffield in his effort.

"(He has) more people and a lot more money (in the district attorney's office) and should be able to handle it now," Coe said.